


Crossed

by altering



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Forbidden Love, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 10:27:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25349197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altering/pseuds/altering
Summary: All anyone knows of vampires is what they've been told–Linhardt's parents included. From the furthest reaches of his memory, he can recall their dread filled warnings and horrifying stories of people left dead and cold at the fangs of such demons. But Linhardt seeks more. Beyond the dusty tales passed between generations and beyond what morsels of information he finds between a book's covers, he wants to know all there is about the beings his parents so ardently detest. More than that...he wants to be shown.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	1. Prologue

_They are demons of the most vile breed; foul, heinous creatures who exist only to prey upon the mortal; a scourge upon God’s blessed earth. They are hellsent abominations, walking shells of the people they once were, now devoid of all soul and purity. No matter how human they appear, no matter what tales they spin to deceive you, they are monsters. Simple, starving, dangerous monsters_.

...Or so Linhardt’s parents had preached.

For as long as he could remember, his mother and father had attempted to instill a crippling fear in him; fear of the unknown, fear of any gaze that might be following him from the shadows, fear of any slight movement he saw from the corner of his eye. On the surface, it could be surmised that these were the normal cautionings of overprotective parents trying to keep their child self-aware and vigilant—average people shielding their son from average dangers. But the paranoia that motivated them ran much deeper. They feared not the kidnappers and muggers, the swindlers and the deviants. What they warned him against was far less rudimentary, and—in their minds—far more realistic a threat.

Try as they might, his parents’ words passed through him as if he were vapor. They left no negative impression, and they failed in their purpose to frighten and deter him. On the contrary, they stirred something in him. They awoke an insatiable, somewhat morbid fascination for the things his parents loathed so vehemently. The more they spewed their fearful sermons, the more enthralled he became. They insisted that he would be devoured; gorily slain if he were to ever encounter such a demon. They told him that he would be killed before he even felt the fangs in his skin. They told him that no amount of prayer or penance would save his spirit once he’d been bled dry. They spared no detail in their descriptions, and Linhardt absorbed every word with ever-growing curiosity that only strengthened as he aged.

Once as a teenager, he’d mustered the courage to ask his father if he’d ever seen one.

“No,” he’d replied, frowning under his mustache. “That’s one horror I’ve not witnessed firsthand, thank God.”

“When you discuss them, you do so with such confidence,” Linhardt said reflectively. “I always assumed you were speaking from experience.” His father’s eyes flashed with suspicion while Linhardt maintained an air of innocence.

“Are my words less impactful to you because of it?” He hadn’t allowed his son to answer before continuing in a bitter, snarling voice. “I don’t need to see one in the flesh to know of their evil. No...I’ve seen what they leave in their wake.” Linhardt’s ears pricked with subdued interest. “You think you know what death looks like until you see someone they’ve had their wretched teeth in. Pallid and feeble, their body so deflated that their skin looks flimsy on their bones...and it’s not always swift. Sometimes it’s a slow transition, sometimes it happens in a single night. Sometimes they’ve still got their blood on them. Sometimes it’s all over everything. Sometimes there’s none left.” His father’s words felt distant, spacey even, before he suddenly remembered where he was. “Let there be no doubt in your mind, I know well the terrors of which I speak.”

Though Linhardt was admittedly intrigued, he was careful not to show it. He blinked calmly at his fuming parent. “Relax, Father,” he said levelly, “you don’t need to justify your authority on the subject. I wasn’t calling into question your integrity. I was only curious.”

The older Hevring, allowing his shoulders to relax, narrowed his eyes disapprovingly. “You ought to mind the wanderings of your thoughts, boy. That curiosity of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.”

Linhardt blinked at him again. “Perhaps.”

He never voluntarily brought up the topic again. It was made clear to him that day that his family was not going to provide him with the knowledge he sought. So began his personal quest.

The Hevring family lived in a humble, but not unimpressive town. It was larger and more modernized than many neighboring settlements; housing a library, a church, a cemetery, a fair sized residential district, a plethora of shops, a municipal building, a post office, and a doctor’s office. Cobblestone streets wove like veins through the town, garnished by lanterns. It was robustly populated, and nearly every hour of the day saw the roads buzzing with townsfolk going about their daily errands. Only when the sun began to sink over the horizon did the activity seem to slow. The moment the light started to fade, the people would retreat to their homes. And there they would stay until sunlight once again graced their unassuming town.

But when the streets were sparsely occupied and the air became eerily still with the absence of life...That was Linhardt’s favorite time. He had made his evening trips to the library regular part of his routine not long after that defining conversation with his father. Of course his parents were opposed these outings, but who were they to stifle his desire for knowledge? As far as they knew, their son was reading about arithmetic or industry. Maybe he was considering following in his father’s footsteps and pursuing a position in the town council. So they, with great reluctance, allowed Linhardt to do as he pleased. However, it was not an unconditional freedom.

Before he left each night, his mother made a ritual of decorating her son with what she believed to be necessary precautions. Around his neck, she draped a rosary–a dreadfully heavy thing made of wooden beads, painted black, and a great, shining silver cross larger than his fist at the time. She wore a gentle but wary smile as she adjusted the accessory on him.

“Promise me that you won’t take it off,” she said, more demanding than requesting that he agree. He nodded, looking down at the bulking piece resting against his chest.

“It’s heavy,” he said.

His mother gave him a sympathetic glance. “It will keep you safe.”

“How?” He tilted his head slightly, his mother briefly taken aback by the small but unprecedented question. Her hands paused, seeming to tighten around the beads.

“My curious boy,” she said through a forced smile, dodging his question altogether. “You won’t be satisfied until you know everything about everything, will you?” She kissed his forehead, her hands leaving the rosary to slip a single garlic flower into his pocket. “Be back in two hours. I’ll wait up for you.”

“Yes, Mother,” he responded obediently, his fingers brushing over the petals peeking from his pocket.

Now in the aimless haze of his twenties, Linhardt still considered his nightly library visits to be the highlight of his day. He still lived at home...somewhat. His parents inhabited the first story of their house, which could have been a complete home in itself. He’d moved into the second floor upon turning eighteen. His mother and father had intentionally procured a house where he could stay comfortably as an adult, at least until he married and started a family of his own. They were all too happy to keep him close. He was their only child, and having him just a stair’s ascent away as they entered their senior years was terribly convenient. His only complaint was their nagging. Being a grown man, he was no longer subject to his parents’ curfews. He puttered around the library well into the night, only leaving when his eyes burned with exhaustion.

As the light outside his window turned dusky, he prepared to set out on his short journey to his personal haven. He sat on the bottom step of the stairway that separated his life from his parents’. His father stared from across the room, seated in his rocker with an open book splayed over his lap.

“You’re going out.” Linhardt could not tell if it was meant to be a question or an observation.

“I am,” he replied, absently lacing a shoe.

“Library?”

“Yes.”

“When will you return?”

“Before dawn.”

It was a familiar exchange that they recited nearly every other day. Nonetheless, Mr. Hevring felt the need to make his dissatisfaction abundantly clear.

“You know it worries your mother sick when you stay out so late.”

There was an undeniable, but unwelcome pang of guilt in the younger man’s chest. “I’ve always returned, haven’t I?” He responded flatly.

Any disrespect was unintended, but he didn’t mind if it somehow manifested in his tone. He could sense his father’s displeasure in the thick silence that hung around them. Linhardt finished tying his shoes, stood, grabbed his satchel from where it hung on the banister, and made for the door.

“Are you wearing it?” The older Hevring asked, his voice stony.

Linhardt wordlessly drew the item in question from beneath the collar of his shirt and dangled the gaudy cross over his fingers. It seemed to give his father a bit of reassurance, as his face softened just slightly.

“Don’t you take that off your neck,” he said firmly. As he always did.

“I won’t,” Linhardt answered, tucking the rosary under his neckline and promptly taking his leave.

The moment he was on the opposite side of the door, he found that he could breathe easier. He began the trek down the road, walking against the steady stream of people returning to their houses before the darkness could catch them. Most people in town knew of him well enough to think nothing of this young man venturing with such blatant indifference into the approaching twilight. Still, he never failed to earn a few baffled looks and cocked eyebrows as his feet carried him deftly to his destination.

The library was only a quarter mile from his home, amounting to a quick five minute walk. Being he wasn’t the athletic type, he was grateful for this. He arrived before great paneled wood doors, bright candlelight leaking from small, slit windows. This, to him, felt more homelike than when he stood at the threshold of his own front door. His hand found the arched steel handle, and he entered, no longer able to feel the weight of the cross hanging from his throat.

He was greeted by the familiar sight of towering bookshelves, albeit few in number, as well as the scent of aging paper, worn wood, and dust. The librarian—a small, withering man whose glasses were about two sizes too big for his otherwise shrunken features—lifted his face from the stack of books he’d been inspecting.

“Young Mr. Hevring,” he acknowledged Linhardt with his old, weak voice that had the consistency of sandpaper. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

Linhardt nodded in return. “Have you had any new arrivals?”

The librarian patted the stack of books on his desk. “Only what you see here.”

Linhardt, with the elderly man’s permission, scanned each book’s cover. Dismay settled in his belly as his eyes fell upon each irrelevant title. Part of him had known better than to get his hopes up, but it was a rare thing for new editions to find their way onto the shelves he knew so intimately.

“Nothing catching your eye?” The librarian asked, noticing Linhardt’s sulking shoulders.

“No,” he sighed defeatedly. The old man looked at him with what could have been pity.

“If you told me what material you were looking for, I might be able to help.”

“That’s quite alright,” Linhardt assured him, straightening his posture. “Thank you for offering, though.”

His elder regarded him with mild interest before shrugging him off and returning to his work. Linhardt skirted his way past the desk and padded down the stretching hall, following a path that he very well could have walked blindfolded. The section he frequented was toward the back of the library, tucked away at the second to last row of shelves—just past the biology texts, and just before the more risqué subject matter. He rounded a corner, making for the very end of the shelves to his usual spot. His eyes raked over the spines of books he’d read dozens of times over as he decided which one warranted another look.

He glanced along the row of literature, mentally debating whether he wanted to read about physiology, or history, or first-person accounts. His brain knew every title so well, he could recall entire passages by heart without stuttering. He desperately craved new, riveting information. Something that would send shivers rippling over his skin, just as he’d felt the first time he read the pages of the books standing before him. He wanted to be left breathless and awestruck by the tales of people who’d crossed paths with the creatures that captured his attention. More and more...he was gluttonous in his desire to learn _more._

Alas, his resources were limited. Linhardt pulled a book from it’s cozy spot on the shelf—a collection of reports done on apparent victims. He nestled it under his arm and exited the aisle to seat himself at a small table, well out of the librarian’s sight as usual. He removed his satchel from his person, setting it on the table and pulling his papers and pencil from within. He flipped his book open, reading the first case with titillation despite the familiarity of every word.

It told of a young woman, twenty-one years old, who’d fallen into poor health very suddenly. Over the course of just one night, she’d acquired a ghastly pallor and an immobilizing frailty. She was incoherent, and unable to keep herself conscious long enough for anyone to speak with her. There was nothing to indicate sickness, nor were there any visible injuries. Her parents testified that they’d heard her scream in the dead of night, but when they reached her room, she appeared to be sound asleep. Though they noted that her bedroom window was wide open—odd considering the late December cold. The doctors promised to attempt a transfusion the following day if her condition did not improve. But they would not have the chance. Her mother found her the following morning, bony and limp, crumpled in front of her window. Again, wide open.

Linhardt made a note about an imperviousness to harsh temperatures before continuing.

The next story was about a gentleman in his thirties. He was a widower, left to father two children after his wife passed away from tuberculosis. His case was a slower burn. In the early stages, he was able to explain to the doctors what had happened to him. He suffered from insomnia after the death of his wife, and stayed up until the earliest hours of the morning either reading or simply staring at the ceiling. He said that this particular night, however, he began to feel drowsy at only eight o’clock in the evening. He described it as a feeling of being lulled to sleep as opposed to natural grogginess. He said it was like he could hear singing. Not physically, but in his mind...like a resonance confined to his own skull. It was a woman’s voice, hauntingly similar to that of his deceased wife, but not quite a perfect imitation. In the fog of sleepiness, he said he heard the voice ask his permission to enter. To which he replied, “You may.” He awoke in the morning feeling sick, but not so sick that he was unable to rise. The tending physicians noted two small wounds near the base of his neck.

Linhardt only skimmed the rest, burdened with the knowledge that the man would continue to deteriorate over the span of a month before dropping dead on his way to the washroom one morning. His children would later claim that they’d seen their father out their window at night, standing among the trees in the distance. Watching. Linhardt made a note about lifetime attachments carrying over into the afterlife, and telepathic influence.

The next was...Linhardt skipped it. In the countless times he’d picked up this book, he’d only read this particular entry once. He didn’t care to read it again. Infecting his mind with the gruesome images invoked by the text a single time was enough. He hastily flipped past it.

The fourth was infinitely more intriguing. It was the case of a woman in her late thirties, another gradual victim like the man before. She lived with her older sister, who also served as her caretaker as the woman had become paralyzed from the waist down in a horse-riding accident as a teenager. One morning, her sister noticed that her color was off, and physical activity seemed more strenuous than usual. When asked if she felt alright, the woman had grinned brightly and replied, “I have never felt so wonderful!” She told her sister that she’d met someone, which only troubled her sister further as the woman never left the house unescorted. “She’s beautiful,” the woman insisted, “She’s been visiting me for days, and last night, we made a promise.” Her sister, deeply unsettled by her apparent delusion, asked what sort of promise. “I’m going to be healed,” the woman answered with elation. “She’s going to restore my legs and make me strong–so strong that I will never die!” Distressed by her younger sister’s words, the older sister took care to lock every door and window at night, and even spent her evenings guarding the woman’s bedroom. It did little good. The woman’s health steadily declined until her sister was unable to wake her one morning. Oddly, she appeared perfectly healthy in death. She was not drained and grotesquely thin as so many other victims. Rather, she appeared vibrant and serene. A few nights after the funeral, her sister had gone to replace the flowers on her grave. As she walked to the cemetery at dusk, she swore that she saw her younger sister, dressed in her burial clothes, holding hands and walking with a woman quite a bit taller than her. The two paid her no mind, disappearing into the furthest shadows of the cemetery.

Linhardt jotted notes regarding emotional capacity.

As he went on reading, his attention was drawn to the fact that none of these accounts were truly definitive. Yes, they’d all been compiled into this collection due to their uncanny similarities and characteristics that matched just a bit too closely to folklore, but there was little science behind it. That was typically the case. Never had a creature itself been autopsied or examined. Even the most detailed biological analyses were based purely on guesswork. For all he knew, these people were lying or hallucinating. Maybe they were just crazy; maybe his parents had been crazy. Maybe their craze had been inadvertently passed down to him and simply presented itself under the guise of what he considered a scholarly pursuit. He longed for something more concrete. And in a backward sort of way, he was intensely jealous of the people in these stories. Though they were dead, they had no doubts. They alone knew for sure what had sealed their fates. Peculiar as it was, Linhardt yearned for their knowledge.

He managed to progress about halfway through the book before his mouth stretched into a yawn, and he pulled his watch from his breast pocket. Thirteen minutes past midnight.

“Damn,” he muttered, tucking the watch away. He’d be in for an earful if he stayed out much later. He quickly returned the book to its shelf, slung his satchel over his shoulder, and haphazardly gathered his notes. With a hurried pace, he made his way back to the entrance of the library, bidding goodnight to the librarian who’d already fallen asleep at his desk. Linhardt was careful not to let the doors slam behind him as he left, guiding them shut with his hands that still gripped his precious papers.

As the doors had been securely closed, Linhardt turned to begin the trip back home. He fumbled with his notes, his eyes focused on them rather than the road ahead. He failed to notice the figure standing staunchly in front of him beneath the dull glow of a streetlight. He collided with the person abruptly, the impact causing him to stumble backwards and land on his bottom as his papers flew from his hands in a plume. The person he’d crashed into was still standing, however, completely unfazed by the smack of another body hitting his. He looked down at Linhardt with a touch of surprise, as if he’d suddenly materialized from thin air.

“Oh!” He said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you walking behind me.”

Linhardt, still dazed from their collision, didn’t respond right away. The stranger knelt to his level, attempting to collect the papers that now littered the street.

“Are you okay?” The man asked.

Linhardt blinked several times as his mind regained clarity. “Y-Yes, I’m fine.” He rushed to retrieve his notes that still laid scattered upon the cobblestone before the man could see the incriminating nonsense that had been scrawled on them. “I apologize, I should have been watching where I was going.”

“Don’t worry about it, it probably hurt you worse than me,” the stranger assured him, still reaching for Linhardt’s papers. “Are you sure you’re alright? It sounded like you took a pretty nasty tumble.”

“Yes, I—”

For the first time since running into the man, Linhardt’s eyes found his face. He was handsome—startlingly handsome. He had to be near Linhardt’s age, perhaps a few years older. His features were so perfectly sculpted, as if he’d been molded by God’s bare hand. He was fair, but not unnaturally so. His red hair was disheveled, but not unkempt. And his eyes...they seemed to draw Linhardt in like amber whirlpools, so alluring that he feared he might actually suffocate if he held gaze for too long.

He cleared his throat, something inside of him insisting that he turn away. “I’m fine, I assure you.”

Had his eyes remained on the stranger, he might have caught a glimpse of the blindingly white teeth that flashed through a sideways grin. “If you say so.”

When all of the papers had been plucked from the ground, Linhardt only held half while the other man had the rest. Before he could request them back, he saw the stranger examining the words scribbled across them in thread after thread of cursive font. He sat frozen, monitoring the man’s expression, but never looking too directly at his eyes. The handsome gentleman’s face remained rigid as he read. Linhardt felt himself tense as a reserved smile finally twitched on the stranger’s lips.

“Vampires, huh?” He said as he returned the papers to Linhardt, who accepted them with a clammy hand.

“It’s just a bit of self-indulgent research,” he said dismissively. “Though I’m beginning to think it’s all fiction.”

“You sound disappointed.”

He felt those magnetic eyes land on him again, beckoning to his own. He resisted their call, only with great effort. Despite his averted gaze, he still felt an intangible pull—like a silent voice was encouraging him to spill every delicious detail of his secretive studies.

“It would be a lie to say that I’m not. To be quite honest, I find the subject utterly captivating,” he said, his voice pouring from his mouth with the slow, viscous fluidity of syrup. “To encounter a being so mysterious and unworldly as a vampire...the concept alone is thrilling, isn’t it? My wish is to be granted such an opportunity.”

The handsome stranger chuckled amusedly. “‘Thrilling?’” He repeated. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that word used in relation to vampires before. You sure are a funny one, mister…?”

“Hevring,” Linhardt finished. “Linhardt von Hevring.”

“Linhardt,” the man echoed, his tongue taking the time to acquaint itself with each letter. Linhardt almost shuddered at the sound of it.

The gentleman stood to his full stature and Linhardt followed, clutching his notes to his chest. He was immediately made aware of their height difference–only a deficit of a couple inches on his part, but somehow it felt much greater. “I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your evening,” the stranger said, dipping his head politely. As he took a few steps past Linhardt, he briefly turned back. “If I may offer a word of advice, Linhardt,” he said with a voice as cool as the night air that enveloped them, “you really should be careful what you wish for.”

Linhardt turned to watch the man as he continued down the road, following his silhouette until it was swallowed into darkness.

 _How strange_ , he thought as a familiar tingle of excitement radiated from his core, identical to the shivers he’d felt the first time his hand touched the bindings of those books he knew so well. At the same time, there was a twisting feeling in his gut, and the decades of warnings from his parents bombarded his mind like a flood. The silver of the cross resting under his shirt suddenly felt very cold on his chest. And for the first time since the day his mother had placed it upon him, he found that it felt comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i started another multichap fic before finishing the other one. it is what it is.
> 
> i'm still working on light & shadow, i promise! there's still a lot of that story left to be told, i just really couldn't wait to get started on this one lmao
> 
> thank you for reading & supporting!!


	2. 1- Lamb

Linhardt hardly slept, though not for his lack of trying. He tossed in his bed, his body tired but his mind restless. His thoughts were busy recanting the events of the night—or rather, one event in particular.

He found that he was unable to rid himself of whatever his meeting with the handsome stranger had awoken in him. He tried fruitlessly to identify it; it wasn’t fright or fascination, or even lust. At least not on their own. Somehow it felt more like a combination of everything. While the man had been unquestionably stunning and possessed a vague charm that Linhardt found attractive, he could sense that there was something else lying beneath it all. Something ominous, perhaps even dangerous. Not dangerous in the sense that the man might have secretly been some kind of crook or charlatan. No...this danger, whatever it was, called to Linhardt’s most primal instincts. It told him to run. It told him that he should be afraid.

But he wasn’t. In spite of the indeterminable threat that the stranger posed, Linhardt was not dominated by fear–far from it, actually. He desperately, honestly wished that he’d cross paths with the man again, hopefully during the daylight hours when they might be able to have a proper conversation. In the incredibly brief time he’d spent in the gentleman’s company, Linhardt could already tell that he was something of an anomaly. For starters, he hadn’t spat in disgust upon reading his detailed, extensive babblings about vampires. He’d actually seemed interested in—or perhaps entertained by—Linhardt’s fixation. That was an unusual response, indeed. Aside from that, the man possessed a remarkable, entrancing aura. Linhardt would even go so far as to label it seductive, and very much unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, even when interacting with the most beautiful or imposing people. Every time he closed his eyes, a pair of golden irises stared back at him. He wondered with burning curiosity what would have happened if he hadn’t pulled his gaze away; if he had heeded the call of the enchanting stranger’s eyes and allowed himself to be completely immersed in their depths. He was intrigued by this from an intellectual perspective, certainly, but his desire to know the answer was perhaps not entirely innocuous.

Linhardt had read enough literature to know that such a preternatural quality could quite possibly be an indicator of something else—something he dared not assume about a person he’d known for only a few minutes.

 _Now you’re just getting desperate_ , he scolded himself as he lay fidgeting in bed. _You’ve resorted to projecting your obsessions onto strangers. It’s pitiful._ Yet he could not shake the persisting feeling that there had been more to that man than he’d observed in their short time together— _so_ much more.

Linhardt rolled, facing the large, paned window that spilled silvery moonlight into his room. It didn’t offer much of a view, only presenting the sight of the barren street below and the neighboring houses, all visible to him even as he laid. There were no lights from any other homes, nor was there a soul to be seen wandering the cobblestone path. The world outside was completely encompassed in shadow, save for one streetlamp glowing resiliently on the opposite side of the road. Linhardt looked at it, watching it flicker as the flame within lapped hungrily at nothing—seemingly the only thing alive that night. He counted his breaths as he stared, attempting to quieten his mind and lure sleep. Slowly, he felt drowsiness settle upon him and his eyelids became droopy. As his vision became obscured by sleep’s coming, there suddenly appeared a figure just out of reach of the lantern’s light. The distance and the darkness made it impossible to discern any features, but there was an indistinct familiarity to it. They were so still that Linhardt thought he might be seeing a shade cast by the streetlight, but the angle was wrong. The light of the lamp strengthened for less than a second, and there seemed to be a fleeting refraction of gold from the shadow where a pair of eyes might have been. A bit alarmed by the image, Linhardt blinked once through the thickening murk of sleep. He inwardly shamed himself for being so easily tricked, as the “figure” had apparently vanished—assuming it had ever been there in the first place. Linhardt allowed himself to relax, but found that he was unable to shake a peculiar, unwarranted feeling of disappointment as he finally drifted into unconsciousness.

The morning brought renewed determination. Linhardt rose with the sun, wanting to get an early start to his day and make for the library before his parents could intercept him. His effort was for naught, however, as he could already hear the voices of his mother and father from the lower level. He noted their presence with a grunt, abandoning his bed to dress himself and prepare for whatever dull, exhaustive conversation he would soon be subjected to. He stood before the full-length mirror by his wardrobe, smoothing the creases from his shirt and tying back his hair without looking at his reflection. Instead, he cast an unnerved sideways glance out his window. His eyes once again found the streetlight and it was all too easy to imagine a person standing beside it, staring fixedly into his bedroom. He shook his head slowly and turned away. He’d already decided that he’d seen no such thing, so why did his mind still insist on toying with the idea?

Unable to clear his bogged thoughts, Linhardt exited his room and plodded down the stairs. Upon reaching the first floor, he followed the sound of his parents’ voices round a corner and into their kitchen. His father sat at the table, legs crossed—book in one hand, steaming cup in the other. He didn’t seem to hear his son enter the room. His mother, standing by the stove and grasping the handle of a kettle, spun to look at him with brows raised in surprise.

“You’re up early,” she said, her words causing her husband’s eyes to stray from the pages of his book.

  
“Decided to wake at the working man’s hour, did you?” his father asked. It was intended to be a lighthearted jab—or so Linhardt guessed by the older man’s tone—but there was an edge of resentment to it that he didn’t care for.

“Don’t get used to it,” Linhardt returned, seating himself on the opposite side of the table. “I have no intention of turning this into a habit. I value my rest too much to ever surrender it for something so boring as work.”

He could feel his father’s eyes drilling into him, but he said nothing. Mrs. Hevring, as if to serve as a buffer between them, joined the rest of her family. She placed a cup of tea in front of Linhardt before sitting down with her own, her eyes flicking uneasily between her son and her husband. After several more heartbeats of tense silence, she took it upon herself to break it.

“Do you have plans today?” she asked, facing Linhardt. He shrugged, downplaying his agenda as he always did.

“I’ll probably spend most of the day at the library. I may browse the shops once I’m finished, though. So if there’s anything you need, let me know before I leave.”

“The library,” his father grumbled. He’d closed his book and now held his cup with both hands, his elbows propped on the table. “Always the library. Seems like you’ve taken up residence there, considering you’d rather spend your evenings among the dust than with your own family. What exactly is it that you study so late into the night?”

Linhardt met the older Hevring’s eyes calmly.

“I study whatever draws my interest,” he answered. “If it was anything that I thought you might find appealing, I would certainly share it with you.”

He saw his father’s hands tighten around his cup while his mother’s forehead creased as if in a wince, but Mr. Hevring had no follow-up.

“Well I’m glad you’ve decided to go during the daytime,” his mother said, once again cutting through the silence. “I’d be reluctant to let you go any later after the commotion in the cemetery last night.”

“The cemetery?” Linhardt asked curiously, though his face did not betray any particular emotion. “What happened at the cemetery?” Mrs. Hevring’s hand rose to trace the embellishments of the crucifix around her neck, and a precarious look passed between her and her husband.

“Well,” his mother began, taking a breath, “when I was waiting for the mail this morning, I happened to catch the groundskeeper on his way to the town hall. I thought it strange, so I called out to him. He looked so frightened, I thought maybe I’d spoken too loudly and startled him, but then he mentioned something about one of the mausoleums. He said that it had been broken into.”

Linhardt cocked his head inquisitively.

“Graverobbers?” he asked. Mrs. Hevring shook her head.

“That was my first thought as well, but no. He said that nothing appeared to be missing. Although…” she clutched her crucifix now, “he told me that he counted one more casket than he thought should have been present in that particular mausoleum.”

Linhardt felt his skin turn to gooseflesh beneath his long sleeves. He did his best to not appear too invested, but his head was buzzing with activity. He folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, his eyes still set on his discontented mother.

“That sounds a bit...far-fetched, don’t you think?” he said, effectively masking his true thoughts. His mother shrugged.

“Yes, I suppose it does,” she conceded. “The poor boy has only been running the place for about a year since the last keeper passed away. I’m not sure that he even knew how many caskets were in there to begin with. I can’t imagine that he checks something like that too often.” She paused. “Still, he looked so certain...somehow it’s hard for me to doubt him.”

The electric tingle of excitement lingered in Linhardt’s body.

“I wouldn’t trouble myself over it if I were you,” he said, casually lifting his cup to his lips. “The most likely conclusion is that someone broke in looking for valuables to sell, rummaged around, and left when nothing caught their eye. That seems far more believable than someone going through the trouble of dragging a coffin into a random mausoleum—and for what purpose? I see little sense in it.”

His mother, still not completely reassured, offered her son a weak smile.

“Such a logician you are,” she sighed.

“Perhaps the purpose of it has yet to be achieved.”

Linhardt turned to his father who looked at him with flinty, unperturbed eyes. His hands had abandoned his cup to sit folded in front of his face, hiding his mustached mouth from sight. Even so, Linhardt could tell that he was frowning.

“And what do you imagine that purpose to be, Father?” Linhardt asked cooly, slowly lowering his own cup back to the table. He could predict what the response might be, but he wanted to hear him say it.

“You know exactly what I'm imagining,” the older Hevring shot back. “For what reason would an unfamiliar coffin be placed within a town that is not its own if not to herald evil?”

“So dramatic,” Linhardt scoffed, “do you truly believe that some unknown party snuck a corpse into our cemetery to mark our town with some sort of hex?”

“Of course I do. And if you were as intelligent as you presume to be, you would too.”

He tried to intimidate his son with the words, but Linhardt had become immune to his verbal attacks long ago. Regardless, Linhardt did agree with his father’s theory, or at least he thought he did. The difference between them was that he had the good sense to refrain from sounding like a maniac.

“You’re welcome to believe whatever you like,” Linhardt said with a shrug. “I never said it was a total impossibility, only that it was a bit outlandish. That’s all.”

His father, unimpressed, stared right through the younger Hevring for several elongated seconds before deciding to drop the subject. From the corner of his eye, Linhardt could see his mother gradually relax in her seat. Try as she might to keep the peace between them, she would not do so at the expense of her own beliefs.

Linhardt remained for breakfast, listening to his parents mutter amongst themselves about mundane things like the weather or whatever had been debated within the town council the day before. Linhardt was deaf to it all, mentally locking himself away to fumble with his own musings. He tried madly to draw the lines between seemingly unrelated events; his run-in with that man in the dead of night, the illusion of a person standing outside his house, the desecrated mausoleum, the odd casket...it was terribly convenient and completely ludicrous at the same time. Fearing that he was becoming as neurotic as his father, Linhardt did his best to keep himself grounded. He tried to balance the “evidence”, as it were, with indisputable fact. Despite his efforts, he kept returning to his years of personal research, every story and legend and hypothesis playing in his brain as if it were on a reel.

He prepared to set out for the day, barely registering the voice of his mother naming items that she needed from town. He might have tuned her out completely had she not mentioned fresh roses and garlic. With his satchel slung over his body and his mother’s list imprinted on his mind, he left. As he followed his usual path down the road, he paused by the lamppost across the street from his home. His eyes cast a line from where he stood to his own bedroom window that looked down upon him. He’d left the curtains open, and he could see inside with notable clarity. It wouldn’t be too difficult to spot a person through the glass—perhaps laying in their bed, scorned by sleep. He could not repress a shudder that wracked his body.

Linhardt continued down the street, finding that he was tempted to pay a visit to the cemetery before thinking better of it. There were probably plenty of gawkers, and he was not eager to be amongst them and their superficial, paranoid whispers. Besides, there were more important tasks at hand. He arrived at the library just as the clocktower tolled nine. The librarian was not at his desk to greet Linhardt, which he was grateful for, as he hadn’t the time for pleasantries. He wove around the counter and past the shelves as he always did, but with footsteps that were more steadfast than usual. He reached his favored section, withdrawing book after book until his arms were full, and brought them to the same table he’d occupied the night before.

Linhardt seated himself without knowing for sure when he might rise again, and pulled the first book from the stack he’d constructed beside him. He entered a dream-like state as he read. There was a newfound purpose to his studies; it wasn’t for the simple acquisition of knowledge, nor was it to appease a strange fixation. At least not anymore. Now, it was for enactment. If all of the prior evening’s happenings were indeed connected, then they presented an opportunity that he’d be foolish to let pass...or maybe he was foolish for seeing such an opportunity where there was none. But he was not about to let mere cynicism deter him. Here was a chance to gain the knowledge that only the deceased possessed. If his suspicions were correct and his intuition held strong, then he could not sit idly by.

He was going to try to lure something. He would act as bait and hand himself to whatever curse his family thought had been cast upon their little town. Not for heroics or to serve as some sacrificial lamb, but to satiate the curiosity that had driven him for as long as he could remember. He’d try to tempt a vampire.

...If only he knew how to go about it. Based on his reading, they either preyed randomly or chose specific people that they’d known in their mortal lives. Never had he found a case where someone actively attempted to make themselves into a target, at least not in the beginning of their experience. He could make himself more accessible to them, certainly; he could leave his window open when he slept, or lay in the streets at night. The only guaranteed method he could come up with was to purposely shed his own blood.

The thought alone made Linhardt dizzy. Despite his profound interest in vampires, he had a remarkably low tolerance for the sight of blood. Ever since childhood, he’d become lightheaded and queasy anytime he’d come into contact with it. He’d even fainted on more than one occasion. It posed a uniquely difficult challenge now as he tried to formulate a plan. His stomach lurched, and he dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter how tenacious or willing he was, something so grotesque was beyond his capabilities.

He focused instead on what was within his control. Yes, he could open his windows. Yes, he could hide the crucifix that hung over his bed and the rosary that hung over his chest. He could expose more skin when he slept. He could avoid carrying the scent of garlic and roses into his room. But there was little else to be done—that much became more and more evident as the hours drifted past. His reading yielded no other solutions as he worked his way through the pile of books he’d procured. Though he’d started his day energized by enthusiasm, he ended up leaving the library late in the afternoon feeling discouraged and anxious. But while his confidence was dented, his resolve was not. As he made his way toward the shops, he cast a glance toward the daylit sky. He silently wished for the sun to fall faster, for the night to bring its quiet and stillness upon the town so that his experiment could begin.

\- - -

Linhardt had made it home before sundown, bringing with him the items his mother had requested. She was at the door to greet him upon his return, and she thanked him as he passed the haul to her.

“What are you planning to do with those?” he asked, gesturing to the bouquets of rose and garlic. She held the plants the same way she might have held Linhardt in his infanthood, cradling them with great care.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said contemplatively, “I may weave some wreaths to hang from the windows, or put them in vases around the house. If you like, I can put some upstairs as well—” she saw the beginning of a grimace creep onto her son’s face and tilted her head. “Are you worried about the scent, dear?”

The scent…? Sure, why not.

He nodded shortly and his mother gave a sympathetic smile. “I know it’s not the most aromatic combination, but you can never be too careful. Still, if it stifles you that badly, I’ll keep them down here.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Linhardt mumbled, eyeing the flowers with repugnance.

Afterward, his evening with his family was spent in relative quiet. Courteous conversation passed between his parents without extending to him. He didn’t know if it was because he seemed particularly distant, or if they were still a bit sore from his obstinate attitude that morning. Either way, he didn’t mind it. It would be a distant speck in their memories by morning.

Following an uneventful dinner, he decided to retreat from his family. He bid his parents an early goodnight, which they returned accordingly. But that was all. He washed himself with painstaking thoroughness in an effort to eradicate whatever trace remained of the roses and garlic that he’d carried home. Then, at last, he retired to his room for the night, shutting his door quietly behind him.

He stood in front of his mirror for the second time that day as he donned his sleepwear, the articles draping loosely over his lithe body. He left the top three buttons of his shirt undone, and the fabric nearly fell completely from one shoulder. His fingers momentarily traced lines from the edge of his collarbone to the cords of his throat, imagining what it might feel like to have teeth latched upon him, and wondering if he’d find little punctures in his skin the next day if he were to feel this same spot. He quickly shook the thought from his head and faced away from the mirror before he could repulse himself. His curtains were still open, and from his window he saw the last bit of sunlight fading from the sky. The streetlamp across the way was already burning.

Linhardt turned his attention to the cross that held vigil above his headboard. He unhooked it from the wall, pleased to find that it was not well secured. It only hung from a single nail. He stuffed it into the drawer of his nightstand, and drew the beaded string of his rosary over his head. He dangled it in front of himself for a moment, observing the way the cross pendant caught the dim candlelight that illuminated his room. It wasn’t unlike the gleam he’d seen through the darkness the previous evening, peering up at his window. From somewhere deeper than his bones, there came a compulsion to keep the rosary within reach—under his pillow perhaps—but he ignored it. This was no night to turn devout. He dropped the piece into his open drawer and thrust it shut. Before extinguishing his lamp and settling in bed, Linhardt unfastened the latch on his window, and opened it—not to its full extent, but wide enough for a grown person to squeeze their way through.

There was nothing left to do but wait. Linhardt took to his bed, thought about covering himself, then decided against it. He laid on his side, his eyes locked on his open window. Below, he could hear his mother and father stirring as they themselves prepared to retire for the day. Linhardt could only guess how much time passed before there was complete silence from the first floor of the house. He estimated that it had been an hour and a half, though he could not visualize the position of the clock’s hands. Still, he stared at his window. And as he watched and waited, his mind ventured. He thought about the garden of rose and garlic downstairs. He thought about the numerous crosses decorating the house outside of his bedroom. The house was well fortified, impervious even, to whatever nightbound predators might be lurking in the dark. He could only hope that he was far enough removed from it all to be unhindered by the effects.

As he continued to lay in the soundless void of nighttime, Linhardt felt an ache in his body that he attributed to his lack of adjustment, and a burning in his eyeballs as drowsiness set in. Only then did he move. He flipped over in hopes that the motion would keep him awake. He laid almost on his stomach, one arm under his torso between him and the mattress and the other curled close to him, while his long hair was swept away from his neck. He didn’t like the idea of turning his back to the window, but as one hour stretched into two, he was starting to think that it didn’t matter whether he stared at it or not—nothing was going to visit him that night.

Until he felt it.

No wind blew through his window, yet he felt a cold slink over him and rest on his body with a sickening heaviness. There was no tangible quality to it, but he perceived it nonetheless; as clearly and certainly as he felt the clothing on his skin. It was like someone had placed the dead weight of a corpse on top of him, rendering him utterly and helplessly immobile.

 _I’m paralyzed_ , he thought. He hadn’t even tried to move, but he didn’t need to. He knew.

His heart began to pound and the hair on the back of his neck prickled as he had the sense that something was approaching. He felt it with the same visceral instinct that told him to keep his rosary near, and for a heartbeat, he wished that he’d obeyed it. Still, the hint of fear that swirled in him was made insignificant by the even more potent feeling of anticipation. He felt it coming closer and closer, and as it did, he could almost hear it. Not with his ears, but with his mind—or maybe it was his soul. Either way, it grew steadily more distinct to the point that it became linguistic; recognizable words falling on metaphysical ears.

“In…” was the first word he heard, short and unpunctuated, but somehow causing his heart to beat desperately against his ribcage like a prisoner rattling the bars of their cell. Then his name.

“Linhardt…”

He’d heard it spoken in that sultry, overfamiliar voice before, and somehow his body became colder.

“Will you let me in?”

He wanted so badly to turn over and look out the window, almost certain of whose face would be looking back at him, but he couldn’t. Whether as a result of fear or some supernatural force, he could not move.

“Will you let me in, Linhardt?” the voice repeated sweetly. It urged him with gentleness, promising terrible and wonderful things of which Linhardt had no knowing. There had been no resistance in him to begin with, but if there had, it surely would have been diminished by the words that wrapped around him like an embrace. He answered not with his mouth, but through the telepathic bond that had been forged between him and this other being.

_Yes._

There was a brief silence, both in his ears and in his head. Then the sound of wood grinding on wood as his window was opened just a bit further. Linhardt held his breath, only able to listen as someone crawled into his room. He could tell that they were moving slowly, pausing upon their entrance and taking soft, calculated steps toward where Linhardt laid frozen in his bed. Their footsteps were muted, inaudible to anyone who wasn’t in the room. Closer, they came. Nearer and nearer until they stopped at his bedside. Linhardt’s spine tingled as he sensed them closing in. Another pause, and then he felt the mattress shift with the weight of another. Even without seeing them, he could tell that their movements were fluid and effortless. They loomed over him now, their hands planted on either side of his body as if to trap him underneath.

“Linhardt,” they spoke his name with their physical voice now, soft and almost sing-song. “I can hear your heartbeat.” Lips met the shell of his ear, and beneath them, teeth. “I know you’re awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i am going to give light & shadow some love soon! but i hope you enjoy this morsel in the meantime. thank you for reading and for your support!
> 
> (twitter plug for any newcomers: @alter_altar. locked but accepting req's.)


	3. 2- Raven

As suddenly as it had settled upon him, the debilitating force that had paralyzed Linhardt vanished. He once again felt that he had control of his body, but he didn’t dare move. Not while he was pinned as he was. He allowed his eyes to stray, and without turning his head, they found the face that stared down at him.

“It’s you,” he whispered. But he’d expected as much.

Braced over his body was the same man he’d encountered the night before—the same messy red hair, the same chiseled features, and the same mesmerizing gold eyes. He smirked down at Linhardt.

“It’s me,” the man said through his smile. Linhardt blinked up at him, knowing better than to hold his gaze. There was undeniable satisfaction in him upon seeing that his theories had all been correct thus far, but it was vastly outweighed by excitement, and the man was quick to notice.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were happy to see me,” he teased, and Linhardt couldn’t help but glimpse at the needle-like points of his fangs, barely protruding from under his lip.

“Would it be so strange if I was?” Linhardt asked, eyeing his mouth with growing anxiety.

“Yeah, I’d call it strange. It’s not often that I get a warm welcome. Although—” he dragged out the last word as he dipped himself closer to Linhardt, attempting to force a connection between their eyes, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You did say that you were captivated by my kind.”

Linhardt looked away, not ready to completely throw himself at the stranger’s mercy. Not yet, anyway.

“Hold on,” he protested, and the man stopped pursuing his gaze momentarily. “You haven’t told me your name.”

He felt the other shift, and from the corner of his eye he could see his head tilt in puzzlement.

“Do I need to?”

“‘Need to’...? No, I suppose you don’t, but,” he paused, fighting the impulse to wet his lips, “I’d still like to know. It seems only fair since I’ve already given you mine. Unless, of course, your intention is to kill me tonight—”

He was interrupted by a dry, hollow-sounding laugh from the man. “Do you really think I’d be so brutal?” he asked. “Bleeding people dry in a single night really isn’t my style. I prefer to go slow, you know? Take my time and really savor my meals. I find that it’s so much better if people are as hungry for me as I am for them. But you know all about that, don’t you? You’ve been craving this for a while now...”

Linhardt flinched as cold fingers slipped under his chin and gently guided his face forward. He let them, though he kept his eyes determinedly averted. Another paper-thin laugh sounded from above him.

“Come on...where has that curiosity of yours gone? Didn’t you want this?” the man said, his voice as smooth and toneless as a sheet of ice. “I’ll make it every bit as thrilling as you imagined it to be. All you have to do is look at me.”

 _Yes, what on earth are you waiting for?_ Linhardt thought, his own mind turning traitorous. _Look at him, damn it..._

“Your name first,” he answered resolutely, doing his best to sound unshaken though he felt every hair on his body rise.

There was silence from the body above, as Linhardt could not even detect the sound of breath being drawn. The fingers beneath his chin began to stroke him tenderly. He tensed at the gentle, placating touch, ignoring the sudden urge to bare his neck.

“Sylvain,” the man finally replied.

Linhardt blinked in the dark, his brain branding the name upon itself so it could never fade from his memory.

“Now, I know you didn’t go through the trouble of luring me just to get my name,” Sylvain goaded, his voice velvety in Linhardt’s ears. “What, are you scared of me?”

“A bit,” he admitted, his gaze still set elsewhere.

“It’s okay,” the vampire assured him in what was almost a coo, “I can take the fear away, if you like. I’ll take everything away and fill your head with only the sweetest things. I’ll make it so that you can think only of me. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The air in Linhardt’s lungs abandoned him all at once, escaping his body in a nearly audible sigh as he nodded. The hand below his chin vanished, and he didn’t realize how soothing its presence had been until it was gone.

“Look at me,” Sylvain repeated, his voice commanding and undeniable, but still benign.

With his willpower quickly fading, Linhardt wavered. He rolled his whole body to lay face-up under Sylvain, and his eyes finally locked with the golden pair above him that cut through the dark like razors. He shuddered. Once again he was overcome by the sensation of being pulled, like something was trying to extract his soul from his body. His skin was chilled and burning at the same time. His muscles went completely and wonderfully limp as he let himself be submerged into glittering waters of amber. His mind was wiped clean, made blissfully unaware of everything outside of those bright, gleaming rings setting fire to his body. Sylvain, meanwhile, watched with muted delight as his prey’s eyes dilated, growing so wide and dark that they appeared spheres of onyx set against a white backdrop. He saw the smaller man’s frame—which had just seconds ago been pulled tight like ropes to a sail—loosen to the point that he seemed as malleable as clay.

“See?” he said through a treacherous grin. “Wasn’t that easy?”

Linhardt nodded sluggishly. He barely processed the words, but he hung desperately to the voice that spoke them.

“Doesn’t it feel good?”

He nodded again. “Really good…”

“But it will feel even better.”

As Sylvain spoke his smile grew a hair wider, revealing elongated canines that caught the moonlight in such a way that they seemed to glow white. The sight of them made Linhardt squirm restlessly. Those were what he desired. Those were what he needed.

“Be patient,” Sylvain hummed, noticing Linhardt’s fretful movement. “I won’t leave you wanting.”

The vampire’s hand ran along the underside of one of Linhardt’s boneless arms, his fingers finding a vein and following it until it brought him to his wrist. It felt as though a path of flames burned where Sylvain’s fingers had dragged over his skin, and Linhardt couldn’t suppress a tormented whimper that rose in his throat. Sylvain’s lips twitched with anticipation as he mercilessly held Linhardt’s gaze. His hand closed around the human’s wrist and brought it to his smirking face. Linhardt watched in near-agony as Sylvain took his fingers into his mouth, one by one, as if to sample him. Linhardt’s lips parted as his breaths started to come in heavy gasps. His mouth felt obscenely good, and his tongue laved appreciatively over the pad of every digit. He could feel the larger man’s teeth graze his flesh, and it filled Linhardt with a delirium that almost made him faint. But his skin, for the moment, remained unbroken.

“You’re good,” Sylvain groaned, his tongue tracing the webs between Linhardt’s fingers. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted something so divine.”

Despite the fact that he only maintained a thread of self-awareness, Linhardt felt his cheeks turn rosy. Sylvain noticed and chuckled softly around his hand, sending vibrations down the length of the smaller man’s arm. His lips then fell to ghost along the blue-green veins that spanned across Linhardt’s wrist like lightning strikes. He inhaled deeply, letting the intoxicating aroma of his human’s body flood him. He licked Linhardt, as if trying to taste his blood through his skin, and the mortal panted needily beneath him.

“So sensitive,” Sylvain noted amusedly. “You’re chaste, aren’t you?”

Linhardt nodded, and the other man used his wrist to muffle a laugh.

“Of course you are. I should’ve guessed by the stench of your house that you hail from a pious family. Even now I can sense your holy objects screaming at my presence. But you,” he let Linhardt’s wrist fall lifelessly to the bed, and he dipped lower until his face was but a single inch from the human’s, “ _you_ want me here. I could feel you through all of the barriers, reaching for me.” His nose nearly touched Linhardt’s. “You don’t want to be bound by faith anymore, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Do you want me to free you from it?”

He nodded, hardly aware of the motion. Those eyes seemed to be digging through his conscience, excavating his innermost thoughts and rendering him powerless to stop it. But he couldn’t bring himself to care, no matter what blasphemy he invited. He looked once more upon the knifelike fangs that glinted in the night’s dim glow, and he had the overwhelming urge to kiss Sylvain and perhaps taste the teeth that he so direly needed in his skin.

“Tell me what you want,” Sylvain ordered, his voice dropping to a dangerous timbre.

“Want your...mouth on me,” Linhardt begged, wriggling futilely at the itch growing just under his skin. “Want you to...bite me...”

Sylvain hummed thoughtfully in response. “You want my bite? You want me to mar you and suck on you until you cry for me?”

Linhardt felt his sanity ebbing quickly, and he took huge, hiccuping gulps of air. He couldn’t take it anymore; the heat inside of him, the icy voice spinning him to sinful heights, the deprival of all the sensations he craved, the eyes that refused to let him even think. He whined in frustration and tried to turn his head away, but Sylvain’s forehead had become plastered to his own, and he followed the movement. He was inescapable.

“I’ll give it to you,” Sylvain continued, unbuttoning Linhardt’s shirt until he lay with his torso stripped and vulnerable. “The pleasure and the depravity...I’ll give you all of it.”

“ _Please_ …” he begged, his whole body writhing under an unbearable weight.

Finally, the eyes vanished from his sight as Sylvain’s head plunged for the crook of Linhardt’s neck, and the smaller man exposed his throat readily. He felt Sylvain’s tongue again, drawing a wet stipe from his collarbone to the edge of his jaw as he groaned impatiently. For the briefest moment, Linhardt felt the hardness of teeth scrape over his flesh, then the pain.

It only lasted a second, if that; a brief but forceful stab in his neck that made his mouth fall open and his eyes roll, and then sheer bliss. He felt Sylvain drink, sucking and swallowing audibly against him. He thought his body might disintegrate. Every part of him became white-hot, and every strand of his nerves seemed to tremble as he became unable to differentiate searing pain from unimaginable pleasure. Before he could stop it, a damning cry rang out from his open mouth.

The fangs left him. Sylvain broke away to look down at Linhardt with eyes that lacked the dangerous, predatory aura they’d held before. These eyes were of a human—a human who appeared completely caught off guard. Neither one of them spoke for a while as they both listened for any movement from the lower level of the house. After two minutes of silence had passed, Sylvain finally spoke.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he teased, “but if you aren’t careful, you’re going to get us both in a heap of trouble.”

“S-Sorry,” Linhardt mumbled, his own pulse deafening in his ears. “I just...wasn’t expecting it to feel like that.”

“Believe me, I understand, but do me a favor and keep your voice down so only I can hear,” Sylvain said, diving again for Linhardt’s neck. “Because if you get me killed, I’ll have a hard time forgiving you.”

Before the younger man could reply, he was battened upon once more. Despite his words of warning, Sylvain seemed to have been enlivened by the reaction he’d received. He bit more hungrily and drank like a parched man fresh out of the desert. Linhardt’s back bowed involuntarily, and the friction of his body against Sylvain’s only added to the euphoria. He caught a moan in his throat before it could escape him, and it came out as a ragged, strangled whimper similar to that of a dying animal. Sylvain did not relent. He gulped against Linhardt, his hands gripping his arched back so that he could not fall away. Linhardt spasmed from the overstimulation, inhaling with shaky and unstable breaths. Something in the farmost reaches of his brain tried to caution him, but he pushed it aside. He felt too good. He felt warm, as though a soft fireglow were heating him from inside. He felt the fangs biting him with just the right mixture of pain and gentleness. He felt himself approaching the serene limbo between sleep and wakefulness as his blood continued to flow.

 _I don’t want him to stop_ , he thought. _I’d let him keep going, even if it killed me…_

At the same time, Sylvain was getting somewhat sloppy. He could feel his measured prudence quickly slipping away as he drank from Linhardt. He hadn’t had such an eager partner in decades, much less one who was so delectable as this. He couldn’t very well remember the taste of wine, but something about Linhardt’s blood brought it to memory. Not only was the savor similar, but so was the mind-numbing effect. He groaned against the other’s skin, holding tight to his body that was so much like glass in both its beauty and fragility. The darker part of him—the part that had long been void of humanity—took pleasure in flawing it, but he forced his mortal instincts to remain strong. Although hesitant, he released Linhardt from his jaws, carefully letting his smaller form fall back to the bed.

The younger man worked to catch his breath as the haze gradually dissipated from his mind. There was a dull ache from his neck, but otherwise he felt heavenly—as light as a feather that could be carried away by the faintest breeze.

“Wow,” he heard Sylvain say from above him, “I knew your blood would be good, but that was…” he trailed off. Linhardt felt his senses slowly returning, freed from Sylvain’s entrancing hold. Still, he found that words were beyond his grasp. They both sat in silence, Linhardt trying to regain mental autonomy while Sylvain fought the temptation to attach himself to the other man once more.

When at last Linhardt turned to speak, he was promptly quieted by a dizzying wave of disgust that turned him cold. Through the shadows, he could see dark liquid smeared around the corners of Sylvain’s lips and a few droplets running down his chin. Linhardt felt his stomach flip, and he had to cover his mouth and avert his gaze to avoid heaving. It did not immediately occur to Sylvain why his human suddenly looked so ill, and his first instinct was to blame himself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice genuinely distraught. “Was it too much? Did I hurt you?”

Linhardt shook his head, the action making him even sicker. He tried to speak through his clasped hand, but Sylvain could not understand. The vampire leaned a little closer to him in an effort to hear better, and the metallic smell of his own blood struck Linhardt like a hammer coming down upon the head of a nail.

“Wipe your mouth!” he said brusquely, turning his head to escape the scent. Sylvain, mildly embarrassed, pulled away and hurriedly rubbed the cuff of his sleeve over his lips until he was clean.

“Sorry about that,” he said with a strained chuckle. “I guess my etiquette has become sort of...nonexistent.”

Linhardt, with his stomach slightly quelled, allowed his eyes to find Sylvain again. “It’s alright...I apologize for snapping,” he said, letting his hand drop from his mouth. “I’m not exactly great with blood.”

Sylvain cocked an eyebrow. “Not great with blood...? And you let a vampire bite you?” He sputtered and barely managed to hold back a hysterical laugh. “You’re weirder than I thought, Linhardt.”

The younger man frowned poutily up at him, but lacked the strength to do much else. He opened his mouth to retort but closed it as he saw Sylvain dip his head again. Linhardt held his breath, feeling his pulse resume its energetic pace. Surely he wasn’t going to bite him again? Not that Linhardt had any objections…

He braced for pain, but was bestowed none. Instead he felt Sylvain’s tongue sweep over where his teeth had previously been, occasionally sucking lightly but never piercing him.

“What are you doing?” Linhardt asked.

“I’m cleaning you up,” Sylvain said without lifting his head. “I wouldn’t want you to see this mess in the morning and pass out.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Linhardt said sardonically, but he exposed his neck just a bit more.

When he’d finished, Sylvain sat up to examine his handiwork. “I’d advise wearing high-collared shirts for a few days,” he said, speaking with the same authority as a doctor addressing their patient. “God only knows what rituals people might perform on you if they were to see this.”

Linhardt hummed meditatively. He massaged his throat, but was careful to avoid feeling his new wounds. “It’s fine. You’ll just have to be more mindful of where you bite me next time.”

If Sylvain had possessed a beating heart, it might have begun to pound with excitement at the younger man’s words. “Aren’t we bold,” he teased. “What makes you think I’d risk coming back?”

Linhardt stared at him with an expression that bordered on bemusement. “I’ve been studying vampires for years. I know your habits as if they were my own,” he said plainly. “I know how you’ll rarely abandon a person until they’re either dead or too weak to provide sustenance, and I know how difficult it is to find a replacement. Though quite frankly, I doubt that you’d be able to find someone in this town as willing and amiable as me.”

While he expressed his thoughts flatly and rationally, something about the way he spoke made him sound downright alluring. Maybe it was his whiff of arrogance, or his unapologetic keenness, or the way he looked laying bare chested and marked with his hair tousled and sticking to his cheeks, but Sylvain was finding him more irresistible by the second. He would have bit his lip if not for fear of empaling it on his fangs.

“You seem pretty self-assured,” he said in a purr, “but if you were really so knowledgeable, then you wouldn’t need me to experiment with, would you?” Linhardt’s jaw visibly tightened, and Sylvain laughed softly. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind being studied! Especially if it means keeping me fed. You said it yourself—it’s a pain to have to look for someone else, and I doubt that anyone here could even come close to tasting as good as you.” His tongue made a quick swipe over his lips, and Linhardt followed its movement intently.

“Shall we say tomorrow night, then?” the human proposed. Sylvain’s white, not-wholly human grin returned.

“It’s a date.”


	4. 3- Moth

Linhardt had made the mistake of assuming that his newly-acquired anemia would grant him a deep, restful sleep. He was dismayed to realize that he was wrong in that assumption.

He woke with a groan, finding that every muscle in his body emitted a dull ache. He’d never been a morning person, per se, but today the prospect of leaving his bed seemed an impossibility. Whatever trace of energy he might have normally possessed could not be summoned. He laid in his bed, hardly able to even blink his eyes open. The mess of crumpled and twisted sheets around him revealed that he’d slept fitfully, although he couldn’t remember dreaming. Unless of course, the night itself had been a dream.

The mix of thrill and apprehension at that thought motivated Linhardt to roll out of bed, only for him to stumble backward upon standing. He struggled to stay conscious through the sudden vertigo that was accompanied by a loss of vision and a low ringing in his ears. He massaged his temples, encouraging his blood to flow through his head.

 _It will be a miracle if I can fake my way through this_ , he snarled inwardly, scorning the idea of having to pretend that he didn’t feel miserable. He’d never been hungover, but he wondered fleetingly if this was what it felt like.

Once he was certain that he was not going to faint, he dragged his useless body to the mirror and cringed at the sight he was met with. He was significantly paler than usual, his skin almost appearing translucent and his blue-green veins easily discernible against the sickly pallor. His posture was abhorrent, as he could not bring himself to stand at his full height. Instead he slouched pitifully, feeling as though the structural integrity of his body was compromised. Dark circles were manifesting under his eyes, but thankfully they were not so stark that they couldn’t be hidden by a touch of powder. Even so, he dreaded the reaction he was bound to receive from his parents. His fingers tugged at the collar of his shirt, revealing two sets of perfect puncture wounds in the vicinity of his carotid artery. He felt himself flush as the reality of the previous night hit him.

 _It wasn’t a dream, then._ Another realization quickly followed. _He’ll be back tonight._

Linhardt shivered, though he wasn’t sure whether it was from excitement or trepidation. Before his mind could wander too far, he turned away from the mirror to dress himself. Heeding Sylvain’s advice, he chose a shirt that completely covered his neck. The area where he’d been wounded felt tender beneath the snug fit of his collar, but it wasn’t painful. The strange soreness in his bones overshadowed it, and made the process of dressing horribly strenuous. He went to retrieve powder from his bedside drawer, and was momentarily puzzled when he found his rosary and his crucifix inside. It took all of five seconds for him to remember why they were there. He sighed exhaustedly, figuring that he may as well return both to their proper places before exiting his room.

As his fingertips met the larger of the two crosses, he felt a jolt strike his hand. He winced and withdrew quickly, grasping his fingers with his opposite hand. Wide awake now, he stared dumbly at the object, half expecting it to be sparking. It wasn’t. It laid indifferently in his drawer, lifeless and unassuming as ever. Linhardt blinked rapidly until his senses returned, glancing anxiously at his hand, then at the cross, and back again. He flexed his fingers experimentally, finding that the appendages were unharmed.

“What…” he started softly, his mind working to process the sensation he’d felt. It hadn’t hurt...it felt only like a shock. A large, nerve-numbing shock.

Carefully, he extended his hand again, hesitating for a heartbeat before closing his palm around the hilt of the cross. As his skin met it, he relaxed, unable to feel anything besides the smooth wood in his grip. He examined the item for a moment longer before returning it to its home above his bed and dropping his rosary into his pocket.

He went on fixing his appearance as best he could, his heart rate still a bit accelerated as result of the jolt that had wracked his arm. He smoothed out his shirt one final time before turning to leave his room, glad to put some distance between him and the crucifix that seemed to monitor his every movement. He descended the stairs with muted footsteps, his parents’ voices becoming more discernible as he drew closer to them. His ears were pricked for any sign of alarm or urgency, any indication that they knew someone–or in their minds, something–had infiltrated their home. He only picked up on mundane conversation; mullings over the weather and the work that each of them intended to accomplish that day. Linhardt exhaled deeply, his tensed shoulders slumping with relief. He was safe. Sylvain was safe.

He joined his family in the kitchen, ignoring them as he targeted the steaming kettle by the stovetop. His parents’ conversation did not waver in his presence. They went right along talking, only acknowledging Linhardt with their eyes as he passed them. _Maybe this won’t be so hard_ , he thought, pouring his tea and joining his mother and father at the table. It was only when he sat down that they grew quiet, and his hopes for inconspicuity were trounced.

“...Darling, are you alright?” his mother asked, widened eyes skimming his pallid features.

_Great._

“I’m fine,” he replied, though the slight rasp in his voice was contradictory.

“Are you sure?” she pressed tilting her head slightly. “You look...unwell.”

He appreciated that she was trying to be gentle with her words, but he knew what she was thinking. _‘You look like hell’_ , he silently corrected her, _that’s what you meant, right Mother?_

“I didn’t sleep very well,” Linhardt said, hoping she would be content with the excuse. She didn’t appear to be, as she rested the back of her hand against Linhardt’s forehead in an attempt to read his temperature.

“You don’t feel feverish,” she allowed, but her concern didn’t lessen.

“I’m not sick. I told you, I just didn’t have a very restful night,” he insisted. At the very least, he wasn’t lying about that.

His mother pursed her lips and retracted her hand, eyeing him with unswayed worry. His father, meanwhile, said nothing. He only observed his son with hard, unreadable eyes. His parents soon resumed their chatter while Linhardt sat quietly, his cheek propped in his hand. Now fairly certain that he was in the clear, he allowed his thoughts to stray. They landed again on the cross in his room, and the surge in his arm. He had already concocted a couple of theories, the first being that he’d felt nothing more than an ordinary static-shock. If that were the case, it had been the strongest shock he’d ever received. There had been something oddly preternatural about it. The sensation had been accompanied by a brief, but potent feeling of rejection, of hostility–like when a child reaches for one of their parents’ most expensive, luxurious possessions and has their hand slapped away. His second theory was precisely that; that he’d been reprimanded by some unseen force for daring to lay a finger on a holy item after the debauchery he’d engaged in the night before. How dare he try to hold something so sacred with the same hands that had so welcomingly touched a demon? How dare his tainted body try to touch something so pure?

He felt the smallest twinge of remorse in his gut, and he nearly grimaced at it. He hadn't put it there. He didn’t want it there. It was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction he’d been conditioned to feel. What did he have to feel guilty about? Sylvain was hungry. He’d fed him. It was as simple as that, hardly different from offering bread to someone who was starving on the streets. So what if blood happened to be Sylvain’s bread? So what if submitting to Sylvain felt uncannily like liberation, and so what if his eyes and his voice and his fangs invoked an unspeakable pleasure? His neck suddenly throbbed as if Sylvain’s teeth were upon him again, sucking on him and draining him, invading his body and mind until nothing else existed–

“Linhardt.”

His father’s stern voice struck him like the flick of a wet rag. Linhardt blinked the world back into focus to find his mother looking on with renewed anxiety and his father with repulsion.

“You look as though you’re falling asleep with your eyes open,” Mr. Herving said, his lip almost curling.

“Maybe if someone hadn’t gone into ecstasies over what may or may not be skulking around the local cemetery, I might have been able to sleep soundly last night,” Linhardt bit back–again, not completely lying. If his father hadn’t led him to believe that a vampire was, indeed, among them, he would not have gone out of his way to lure him to their house. And he certainly would not have stayed up all night indulging him.

The elder Hevring perceived the retort as Linhardt had hoped he would, and he raised his brows with surprise. “It’s not like you to fret over such things,” he said, to which Linhardt only sipped his tea. “...I apologize.”

He let the half-hearted attempt at an apology go unanswered.

“This is one occasion where I would have preferred you slept in,” his mother muttered while she cast her husband an accusatory look. “Really, you should rest today. Exhaustion is a precursor to illness, and you already look like you might collapse under the weight of a feather.”

“You worry too much,” Linhardt replied dismissively, though the idea of curling up in bed and napping the day away was sounding more and more tempting by the second, “but I’ll refrain from leaving the house if it helps to put you at ease.”

His mother nodded, mollified by his words, and the subject was abandoned. It seemed that the prying was done, at least for the moment. He was slowly learning that he was not the performer he’d thought himself to be. In fact, he was proving to be a rather poor showman. His lethargy and overall frailty would only become harder to conceal if he decided to continue allowing Sylvain to visit. But what choice did he have? Everything he did was for the sake of his research. If the pursuit of untapped knowledge came at the price of his health, so be it. In the end, the world would be all the better for it.

“–Sunday?” his mother’s voice faded in.

Linhardt turned to meet her with an utterly blank expression. “Sorry?”

“I said, do you think you’ll feel up to attending church on Sunday?”

Linhardt lingered on the question, unsure of how to respond without rousing suspicion. His mind returned to the shock of the cross. If a single sacramental scrap had caused such a reaction, what would happen to him upon entering a house of worship? Suddenly, the countless illustrations he’d seen of people and creatures combusting and writhing while a priest held up a cross exuding divine light. He wanted to shudder. Even more, he wanted to know.

“I’m sure I’ll feel better by then,” he answered, feeling the familiar tingle of excitement in the pit of his belly.

\- - -

Midnight approached with all the rapidity of a snail traversing a sidewalk. Linhardt sat cross-legged in bed, his window open to its fullest extent and his crosses safely stowed away. The faint breath of night air that entered his room was cool and crisp; probably the last cold night of the season. The tinge of bitterness it added to the atmosphere only enhanced Linhardt’s loneliness. He sighed wistfully. If Sylvain was coming, he couldn’t feel it.

 _‘It’s a date,’_ he’d said. What reason would he have to lie?

He didn’t realize that his gaze had strayed from the window, and he hadn’t noticed the soft sound of wood being grazed nor the footsteps on his floorboards as feet navigated their way around every creak. He only came to his senses when he felt his mattress sink under the weight of another body beside his.

He turned quickly to find Sylvain seated beside him, the intensity of his presence making Linhardt feel small in comparison.

“Hello again,” he said, lips pulling into a sideways grin.

“You really came back,” Linhardt noted. “I’m glad to see that you’re a man of your word.”

“What, you were worried that I was going to string you along?” Sylvain gave a false pout. “How cruel do you think I am?”

“I hope to find out,” Linhardt said, wasting no time as he maneuvered himself onto Sylvain’s lap and shrugged his shirt just slightly off one shoulder.

Aside from an initial hint of intrigue, Sylvain’s expression did not change; he remained smug and aloof. “So impatient,” he mused aloud. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a taste for this sort of thing now? I’d feel awfully guilty if that were the case.”

“Please,” Linhardt scoffed, “it’s all in the name of research.”

“Right,” Sylvain said as though he were humoring him. He ghosted his lips over Linhardt’s exposed shoulder, drinking in his scent as he did. “Here’s something for your notes–a vampire’s smell can linger on someone they’ve bitten for up to forty-eight hours...helps to keep us from picking off each others’ plates, so to speak.”

Linhardt swallowed with great difficulty. When had his throat become so dry? “Interesting,” replied. “So you’re saying you’re still on me…?”

“On you, in you, however you want to describe it,” the redhead teased, “but yes.”

“I see,” Linhardt’s breath hitched as Sylvain’s mouth ventured to his ear, incisors lightly scraping his lobe. “That may...explain something that happened to me this morning…”

His curiosity piqued, Sylvain paused his activities to look at his partner quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“I went to retrieve my crucifix from the drawer,” he nodded toward his nightstand for clarification, “and when I touched it, it...shocked me. It didn’t hurt, necessarily, but it’s almost as if...it was trying to repel me.”

Sylvain’s face grew increasingly concerned as Linhardt spoke, and by the time he’d finished, he appeared almost angry. “That’s pretty normal, actually,” he said, his voice still mild despite his expression. “It doesn’t quite align with what I was saying, but I guess it’s similar,” he continued, resuming his trail over the silken column of Linhardt’s neck. “You see...the moment you’ve been bitten, you’re less human than you were before. And the more you’re marked–the more you’re fed upon–the more your humanity slips away...until you’re empty, by every meaning of the word. Your heart stops, but your body moves nonetheless. Your soul is stripped away and replaced with something else; something that’s almost you, but not quite. The sunlight that you used to bask beneath and the church where you once found solace now set your body ablaze. You exist only in darkness. And you’re _hungry_ ,” his tone dropped, and the new vibrations caused goosebumps to rise from Linhardt’s skin. “You’re _starving_ , and it’s all you can think about...and you know what you have to do to satiate that hunger, you know exactly what it is that you need because you can hear it pounding in your ears even though your heart is still and your pulse is gone...,” his voice devolved into a desperate growl while his gaze ventured upward to lock onto Linhardt, who found himself enraptured by the other man once again. “ _God_...I’m so hungry, Linhardt…” Sylvain pleaded, his words seeming to echo within the younger man’s skull like the voices of a congregation in the chambers of a cathedral, surrounding him and calling him to a higher plane. “Can I please…? Will you let me…?”

Linhardt could only offer a shallow but exuberant nod in response, weaving his hands into Sylvain’s unruly hair as the latter lunged forward, jaws gaping and canines glistening. Linhardt welcomed the brief pain and the earth-shattering pleasure that followed on its heels. Sylvain sucked aggressively against him, reaching under Linhardt’s shirt to drag his fingernails over his human’s back. Linhardt all but collapsed under his touch, his body slumping forward against Sylvain’s chest like a ragdoll as the onslaught of sensations threatened to carry him away. His vision was becoming blotted by nonexistent shadows while a distinct ringing sounded in his ears, all indicators that his consciousness was fading. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It didn’t matter that the world was ebbing away, nor that the life was quite literally being drained from his body. All that mattered was the feeling–the warmth, the oblivion, the high that came with Sylvain’s fangs in his skin.

He felt the other man detach from him and say something. His voice came as muffled, indistinct syllables to Linhardt, whose eyes were gradually rolling shut. Sylvain sounded far away, and he became further still as Linhardt succumbed to unconsciousness.

“Hey,” Sylvain said a bit more anxiously as he watched the younger man drift. His expression was dreamy and unfathomably pretty, but Sylvain was unable to take the time to appreciate it. He removed Linhardt from his lap and carefully laid him down.

 _Shit_ , he cursed as he observed the shallow rise and fall of his chest. _Yesterday must’ve taken a greater toll on him that I thought...Why the hell didn’t he say anything?_

“Come on, wake up,” Sylvain urged, patting Linhardt’s cheek in an effort to revive him. “Wake up, show me you’re okay.”

He saw Linhardt’s eyes move under their lids before he opened them halfway, scanning the ceiling blearily before blinking at Sylvain.

“...Did I faint?”

“Yeah, you did,” Sylvain’s brows knit together in frustration. “You should have warned me, I would’ve stopped.”

Linhardt blinked at him again. “I didn’t want you to.”

Sylvain’s chest tightened, despite his lifeless heart. “You’re so strange,” he sighed. “What would happen if I accidentally killed you?” His question must have been rhetorical, as he gave Linhardt no time to answer. “Your family would find you, see my marks on you, and inevitably start looking for me. And you–what good will that ‘research’ of yours be if you’re too dead to share it?”

Linhardt did not reply. He was sure that he had a decent counterargument, but his foggy mind could not put it to words. He felt the bed shift as Sylvain moved to the edge.

“I think it’d be best if I take my leave and keep my distance for a few days. In the meantime, you should rest and build your strength back up. I recommend lots of red meat and fish to help with the anemia. Calves’ liver is especially rich in iron. I’ll come back once you’ve had enough time to recover, just try not to overexert yourself until then.”

He started to rise to his feet, but Linhardt managed to reach out and grab the cuff of his sleeve with feeble fingers. “Wait,” he said, the uncharacteristic desperation in his voice causing Sylvain to look down at him expectantly. “Please don’t leave...not yet. Could you just...stay with me until I fall asleep?”

Sylvain’s eyes darted over him. Blood still trickled from the new punctures by his shoulder and the scent wafted all around him, more alluring than any perfume. That, coupled with the sweet pleading in his expression, was more than Sylvain could take.

He huffed defeatedly and resituated himself on the bed, scooting close to Linhardt and thumbing away the excess blood on his skin. He told himself that it was better if he stayed a while, if for no other reason than to ensure that Linhardt didn’t pass while he slept.

“Hey…” Linhardt said suddenly, pulling Sylvain from his machinations. “How old are you?”

“Are you asking how old I was, or how old I actually am?”

Linhardt seemed to mull it over for a moment. “Both, I guess.”

“I was twenty-six when I died. Right now I’m…” he paused, attempting to do the math in his head. “I’m a hundred and two, I think.”

“You’re younger than I would have guessed,” Linhardt remarked. “If you were human, you might still be alive today.”

Sylvain chuckled hollowly. “Yeah, maybe.”

“...How do you turn someone?” He felt Sylvain tense beside him. “I’ve never been able to find any concrete explanations. No two theories are exactly alike. But you must know, right?”

“It’s not a pleasant ordeal, I can tell you that,” Sylvain cautioned, though Linhardt gave no indication of being deterred. “Like I said before, the process starts as soon as you’re bitten. You know how you said you felt like your cross was repelling you? That’s one of the first signs that it’s begun. The change happens in your soul before it happens in your body. Tomorrow your crucifix might hurt you a little worse since you let me bite you again, but nothing has been done that can’t be undone. At this point, it’s like you’ve got a drug in your system; given enough time, you’ll be clean again. I think that if I were to leave you alone for about a week, you’d go back to normal. People who are killed by vampires over the course of a couple days won’t turn after they die, and that tends to be the way most vampires operate; by either killing quickly, or moving on to a new victim before any real damage can be made.

“However,” Sylvain’s tone became more stern, “there are some who go out of their way to turn people. That typically involves feeding on the same person night after night without giving them time to recuperate. In those cases, the person will experience physical changes. At first they might just feel sick; they lose their appetite, they become incredibly weak, they sleep through the day, nothing too unusual. But as their condition worsens, they start losing their humanity altogether. Their fangs begin to grow before they die, they might even try to bite people while they’re still living if they’re hungry enough. The sunlight feels like it's searing their skin, and they can’t even look at a cross or a bible without feeling the urge to heave, so touching either object is out of the question. The smell of garlic, too, makes them want to wretch. Death might seem like a mercy at that point, but it’s not. There’s only a short period where they feel any sort of relief, and that’s when their heart quits beating. In the moment when they’re really and truly dead, there’s a bit of reprieve. It’s over as soon as nighttime comes, though. They wake up in their casket, confused and scared, but mostly famished. Those first few nights when they’re adapting to their new existence and just trying to satisfy that insane hunger is when they’re most dangerous. I assume you’ve read stories about the victims who’ve suffered grizzly deaths?”

Linhardt nodded. He would have shuddered if he’d had the strength.

“They probably died at the hands of a newborn vampire, probably someone they knew. The new ones almost always go after their family or friends first. You’re too crazed at that point to think better of it, so you rely on your sense of familiarity. ‘Mother and Father will help me. My friend will know what to do.’ That sort of thing. So you go to them, and of course they let you in when you ask, because how could they not? For a single second you’re reunited, everything that was wrong is made right, and your last days feel like nothing more than a bad dream. But then their smell hits your nose, and you just…” he hesitated, drawing out the silence as if he needed a moment to collect himself. “...You don’t remember doing it. You may as well have been unconscious for the whole thing. You don’t want to believe that you’re capable of such brutal and indiscriminate violence. It would be easy enough to convince yourself of your innocence, if not for what was dripping from your mouth–”

He ventured a glance down at Linhardt, half expecting to find him out cold. He wasn’t. He appeared wide awake as he looked up at Sylvain, enthralled by every word he spoke. _Weird_ , the older man thought, _he’s looking at me the same way he did yesterday, but...I’m not doing anything._

“Sorry. That got kinda gross.”

“...Is that what happened to you?” Linhardt asked, completely ignoring Sylvain’s comment. If he felt any pity, his voice did not expose it, but he wasn’t apathetic either. If anything, he sounded melancholy.

“No more questions tonight,” Sylvain said softly, pulling a blanket over Linhardt’s body. “Save some for my next visit.”

“Which will be when?”

“That’s a question,” Sylvain admonished him lightheartedly, smirking when he earned an irritated scowl from his companion. “I’ll come back in a few days, just so you can get your strength back up. It’d be boring if you kept fainting on me. Your reactions are half the fun, after all,” he lowered his face until he could feel Linhardt’s breath against him. “The sounds you make, the way you flush, the way you beg, not to mention the way you taste...I honestly don't know how long I’ll be able to last without you.” He felt Linhardt tremble as he dared to sweep a thumb over his lips. “Maybe I should have one more nibble...just to hold me over…”

Linhardt felt his heart hammer against his chest as Sylvain dipped to meet his lips. He fully expected to feel the soft press of his skin, and nearly jumped when he was instead met with the tip of his fang. It scraped against him gingerly, just enough to draw a few droplets of blood which Sylvain promptly accepted. He took Linhardt’s lip between his own in a sort of half-kiss, suckling gently at the tiny cut he’d made. Linhardt exhaled a breathy whine, practically melting against Sylvain’s lips. He still felt lightheaded from passing out, and the excited pace of his heart along with the rush of endorphins only made it worse. The room spun around him, and he weakly tried to pry himself away from Sylvain before he could faint again. The vampire obliged, releasing Linhardt from his mouth and stroking his hair tenderly.

“Deep breaths,” he instructed. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”

Linhardt did as he said, though it did little to quell the frenzy inside him. He let his eyes fall shut, focusing on the hand petting his hair as he continued to regulate his breathing. Sylvain watched him intently–vigilantly–not allowing his gaze to stray until he felt the other’s heart slow to a calm, steady rhythm, and his breaths deepened with the onset of sleep. Still, he lingered, finding himself reluctant to part from his human.

Linhardt’s reposeful appearance as he dreamed was nothing short of angelic. It triggered a pang of shame in the chasm of Sylvain’s chest. He’d avoided committing himself to one human for this exact reason; for fear of becoming attached, of feeling the grotesque, primal urge to corrupt him...of putting himself in a position where he was once again endangering someone just by existing. Despite all of that, he could not part himself from the warmth of Linhardt’s grasp until the sky outside began to lighten with the pastel hues of morning. As he rolled out of bed and prepared to retreat out the window, he cast a longing glance over his shoulder to where Linhardt slumbered soundly, and found himself wishing he could stay.

 _Crap_ , he thought, a bit sullenly. _I think I really like this one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have i really not updated this one since august?? oops lol that one's on me, sorry  
> thank you for sticking around despite the long wait! i hope to be back on a more regular writing schedule soon!
> 
> twitter: @alter_altar  
> cc: @alter_altar


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